This.

Nils van der Poel, a Swedish speed skater, published you can say his training manifesto. He trained years just for the Olympics. One season he basically didn't compete at all I think. He had a years long cycle just for the Olympics.

Men really don't like it when told No.

Great job

Nice job!!

Yes, they often go into trials having not tapered, so factor that in to their potential success at the Olympics.

The Australian swimming team changed the timing of the trials once and found it detrimental, for Rio (trials in April, Olympics August) so reverted to June for Tokyo with good success.

Also allows to fine tune final training and get the taper right.

Quite suprised that the US swimming team is only chosen just over a month before the Olympics. Was assuming a team would be picked at least 6 months to a year ahead of time to allow for more intense training, team building etc for relay.

They need to peak at the right time. If the trials are 6 months out they have to peak then, then come down, then peak again for the actual Olympics. By having a trial close to the Olympics it allows an intense building phase of training over winter with the trials probably just sub-peak and then finally peaking a month later.

At that level swimmers are used to relays, they will have doing them for years. Some athletes will be selected only for relays - you can change the entire team out between heats and finals.

Team GB final selection is in early April for end July / early August Olympic events. You need to select who is on form and hopefully won’t pick up an injury in the interim. Athletes on the Team GB pathway will plan their training around major events so a few weeks notice of team selection will be fine.

Quite suprised that the US swimming team is only chosen just over a month before the Olympics. Was assuming a team would be picked at least 6 months to a year ahead of time to allow for more intense training, team building etc for relay.

Wonder how quickly CAS will set a hearing date, from reading this guide it seems like they can act fairly speedily when it comes to deciding about eligibility for competitions
"The Russian athletes’ appeal against the IOC decision not to invite them as neutral competitors was lodged at 8.30am on 6 February 2018 and resolved by CAS (in the athletes’ favour) following two days of written and oral submissions, on 9 February 2018."

I managed something similar with a BBC article about Semenya last November, and managed to get them to stop calling Semenya and the other DSD athletes female.

Great job!

Wonders will never cease!

I'm beginning to wonder if some of these places have stopped letting the habitually offended be in charge of complaints?

Well I've just had a very pleasant surprise from the BBC of all places. I complained about the article that they put out about this which claimed that lia was a transgender female and that transgender females had been banned from swimming in the women's class so I sent off my complaint expecting the usual bs response instead they have only gone and changed the article and not only removed any mention of transgender females but actually stated the bloody rules with use of the word male.😱🥳https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/swimming/68104658

cant all the male boxers , swimmers etc decide they are all trans too, and then thrash, I mean beat these idiots?

Yes. Sorry. Lia went to UPenn (Ivy) not Penn State

University of Pennsylvania (UPenn or Penn) is an Ivy League school, not Pennsylvania State University (Penn State).

An interesting opinion video that I think is relevant to this thread:

Some men don't like a level playing field which shows up their mediocrity. Some of those men will have tantrums when the world won't let them do what they like and won't pretend they're better than they are. The grown ups should put in strong boundaries and not listen to the emotional manipulation of such men.

Penn State is Ivy League. Thomas not only is an American white upper class male with good looks and health, he is in the top of all white Amecian upper class males with good looks and health because he attends an elite university. But, he still doesn't have enough, does he? He has to steal from the women because god forbid he's not at the pinnacle of the patriarchal pyramid. The hubris is mind blowing.

Did you know Lia has a brother Wes. Wes went to the same Uni and was also a member of the swim team. I believe he was pretty decent and actually took part in an Olympic trial event (although don’t think it went anywhere). I have no idea how they compare regarding times when they were both swimming in the mens league.

but at the elite level the evidence is just too overwhelming.

it's ridiculous, isn't it? And infuriating.

The advantage is the same at any level of sport.

I read a (small) thread on this on Reddit, and bar a few extremists, even other trans people are calling this bs and calling Thomas daft. Several transwomen in that thread were saying "been on HRT x years and still have an advantage over cis women".

As long as women fight back on this, there is enough evidence that in sport the TRAs won't win. Not at the elite level anyway. They will weasel their way into amateur sport and youth sport potentially, thus reducing the pool of girls and women, but at the elite level the evidence is just too overwhelming.

That should be irrelevant for CAS.

Whilst I admire Helen Joyce, Maya Forstater, Rosie Driffield, JK Rowling, Allison Bailey and too many more brave women to mention, I do think there is a certain irony that it is men like Lia Thomas who will bring this whole house of cards tumbling down.